Solar and wind could offer 'cheaper power than coal'

Vince Chadwick

THEY account for less than 4 per cent of our electricity generation now, but solar and wind could be cheaper than coal by 2030, according to the Climate Commission.

Chief commissioner Professor Tim Flannery said rooftop solar panels may already be cheaper than conventional electricity in areas with high power prices, such as south-west Western Australia, and some regional areas.

Solar generates about 0.3 per cent of the nation's electricity and he said the industry was set to boom as costs fell and markets expanded in places like India and sub-Saharan Africa.

''If you had looked at penetration of mobile phones into the market 15 years ago, you would have seen a similar sort of thing,'' he said. ''These technological changes can happen incredibly quickly.''

About 754,000 households and businesses have installed solar panels.

''I think a lot of people are saying 'why would we be hostage to ever increasing electricity prices'?'' Professor Flannery said. ''The price of production has dropped 75 per cent in four years, this is now affordable technology.''

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Australia aims to generate 20 per cent of its energy through renewables by 2020. That figure is now about 10 per cent, two-thirds of which comes from hydroelectricity, nearly a quarter from wind and 3 per cent from solar.

The Generating a Renewable Australia report to be launched on Monday in Sydney by Professor Flannery and fellow author, Climate commissioner Professor Veena Sahajwalla, reiterates that global carbon dioxide emissions will need to be near zero by 2050 to ensure a two-thirds chance of keeping the planet's average temperature less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Professor Flannery said this was the tipping point beyond which more extreme weather events and rising sea levels would become unmanageable.

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The report is the 15th from the Climate Commission, which was established by the federal government last year as an independent body to explain the science of climate change and the purpose and operation of a carbon price. Under its terms of reference it cannot comment on policy.

The report's authors said policies that put a price on emissions and gave financial incentives for renewables had driven investment in renewable power.

The Coalition has promised to abandon the carbon tax, but Professor Flannery said it had committed to matching the government's target of a 5 per cent reduction in emissions.

''Whatever the mechanisms they will use, presumably they will want to honour their own policy commitments and make that minus 5 per cent,'' Professor Flannery said.

The report focused on electricity generation, Australia's largest source of greenhouse gas, which accounts for 35 per cent of emissions. About-three quarters of the country's electricity is generated by coal.

''We saw more money invested in 2011 in clean technologies than in fossil fuel,'' Professor Flannery said. ''So we've crossed the threshold. We need to prepare ourselves for a very different energy grid in future.''